


Completely Weightless

by blcwriter



Series: Write a New Alphabet [8]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Awesome Allison, BAMF Allison Argent, BAMF!Stiles, Blood Magic, Canon-Typical Violence, Freeform- Magic, Gen, Grief/Mourning, I never said Stiles wasn't a confrontational douche, Magic, Magic!Stiles, Magical Artifacts, PTSD, Someone should still give these kids choices, Stiles couldn't tell a kind truth if you slapped a geas on him, Timeline What Timeline, a-chronological series, no sunshine or puppies at all, timey-wimey magical stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-22
Updated: 2013-04-22
Packaged: 2017-12-09 04:18:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/769891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blcwriter/pseuds/blcwriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles narrowed his eyes, then said—“How many other people in this town are actually going to give you a choice?  Tell you the truth?  Make up your mind.”</p><p>The witch light grew so bright she almost shielded her eyes—but she wouldn’t, not when she didn’t know who <i>this</i> Stiles was, what had happened to him to be bruised and witch-powered, making demands and talking shit about her family like he had any right.  He’d been as bad as the rest, when the kanima was running around…</p><p>“Get out of my room,” she managed, advancing on him with the knife, the lead in her legs lightening with the anger she felt, because how <i>dare</i> he.</p><p>Stiles smiled at her, and that smile—was wrong.  Kind of crazy.  Furious, too, like he’d really like to shoot her, or just someone.  “Two hours.  I don’t give a shit about your redemption arc, just so you know.  If the wolves kill you after we’re done for the way you shot Erica and Boyd full of quills, that’ll be pack business, not mine.  Your pity party’s your business.”</p><p>In a flash, he and his witchlight were gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Completely Weightless

**Author's Note:**

> Not relevant to the overall story or flow, but please note that in "Keep Going" and "Tis a Gift..." I made some edits having to do with not having gotten all the way through season two and therefore having been a little fuzzy on ages/continuity details in the series. 
> 
> The series is still essentially an AU as of the end of the end of S2, and as of "Useful, Like Iron in His Spine," should be considered an AU from S3 and where Jeff Davis & Co. say we're going... my Alpha Pack was not his Alpha Pack, though I reserve the right to steal interesting canon details for flashbacks, since I'm screwing around with chronology in this series in any event.

It wasn’t the cool touch of metal to skin that woke her—it was the snick of the safety, so quiet a noise. Still, it sounded like nothing else, and it was something her subconscious knew, even as the rest of her had been stupid, ignoring whatever it was making their way into the room…

There was a snapping noise, a flare of light as she rolled, grabbed under the pillow and came up with the knife, even as fear held her in place, weighed her down because… 

“Stiles?”

He shook his head like he was disappointed at the knife in her hand. His face was kind of bruised, his lip split, and—there was a weird ball of white light bobbing behind him, casting weird shadows all over the room. 

“Didn’t your daddy teach you not to bring claws to a gun fight?” He didn’t keep his voice low, though it was perfectly even as he looked her over. He smiled like he was remembering something he thought was funny, but his eyes weren’t amused—Stiles’ eyes always sparkled, wet, shiny, whenever he was happy or sad. He jerked his chin at the bags by her door, then raised his eyebrows at the one sitting at the foot of her bed, waiting for her to shove in the last couple of things in the morning. 

“I could call you lots of things, Allison, but I’d never have called you a coward,” he said. The gun was still pointed at her, and—his hand wasn’t shaking. At all. It didn’t look like a BHPD sidearm.

No one had told her Stiles knew how to handle a gun. He’d been miserable with that crossbow, but now… and the light, it had to be magic.

She tightened her grip on the knife, didn’t shift the grip because he hadn’t fired the gun yet. Throwing it into his chest would be premature; it had been a while since she’d seen him. And anyway, that light wasn’t—real. Magic. Who knew if the knife would even reach her? Maybe the gun was a distraction?

“It’s my father,” she tried to explain, hating the wobble in her voice at the end. Still, Stiles would get that. He knew about family. He understood.

Stiles frowned. “Your father’s a speciesist fuckup. I’m not saying he doesn’t love you, but he doesn’t have the spine to protect this fucking town. This is my home. There’s a pack of alphas rolling up on my doorstep. I don’t give a shit if your daddy’s freaked out because Grampa McPsycho fucked with your poor little head and he was too impotent to stop it. All I care about right now is keeping this place from becoming a goddamned hellmouth. At least Kate didn’t think you were too young to be told what she thought was the truth, even if she was a fucking psycho. Pardon my french.”

Stiles’ hand on the gun was still steady. That light behind him, though, that got even brighter. And the room was getting warm. Like that light was some kind of fire. She should have read the part of the book about magic. She should have. But Kate-- Kate was always on about the risks from the wolves, and her parents—they’d been so pissed that Kate told her at all, what else would Kate have told her about magic?

She could put this knife in Stiles’ eye, she was pretty sure of it, but—he still might get off a shot and then they’d be back at—well, zero sum games, that was what Finstock was teaching next week. If Dad was going to pull her from school, she was going to finish the reading, regardless.

Stiles shook his head like she was being slow. Like him showing up like a ninja in her room with a gun and some kind of witch light wasn’t enough to make her want to think really carefully about what she said next. She’d meant what she said to Scott, about needing time. Hadn’t he told that to Stiles? They were always in each other’s pockets.

He just arched an eyebrow at her, like he was goddamned Derek Hale. “Aren’t you tired of running?”

“I need time,” she protested. Stiles laughed, a short sharp bark, even as she said “I told Scott that…” and he just laughed again, something wrong with the sound. 

“I don’t care about you and Scott. And we don’t have that much time. I am telling _you_ , Allison Argent, that this town is falling apart and that you have a chance to help _me_ stop it. So. Either protect your mother’s and your aunt’s gravestones, protect the one place you made some actual friends, protect the first place you shed blood, protect the first place you’ll remember as _home_ ,” he said, his voice finally rising in anger, his eyes glowing gold like he’d turned wolf, though he’d never have made it past the ash on the sill if he had—“…or run away with your dad. If you do, though—don’t ever come back.”

He narrowed his eyes, then said—“How many other people in this town are actually going to give you a choice? Tell you the truth? Make up your mind in the next two hours, bleed on and burn this if you’re in,” he said, flipping a folded piece of paper onto the bed, “and I’ll get you where you need to be.”

The witch light grew so bright she almost shielded her eyes—but she wouldn’t, not when she didn’t know who the fuck _this_ Stiles was, what had happened to him to be bruised and witch-powered, making demands and talking shit about her family like he had any right. He’d been as bad as the rest, when the kanima was running around…

“Get out of my room,” she managed, stepping off of the bed and advancing on him with the knife, the lead in her legs lightening with the anger she felt, because how fucking _dare_ he.

Stiles smiled at her, and that smile—was wrong. Kind of crazy. Furious, too, like he’d really like to shoot her, or just someone. “Two hours. I don’t give a shit about your redemption arc, just so you know. If the wolves kill you after we’re done for the way you shot Erica and Boyd full of quills, that’ll be pack business, not mine. Your pity party’s your business.”

She took another step further, raising the knife because she’d kill him, she would, but Stiles laughed and the light disappeared, a soap-bubble pop faint in the dark. She fumbled back for the lamp because the dark wasn’t right, didn’t feel real—but the folded paper square was still on the bed where Stiles had tossed it, and the room smelled like the outdoors after the first warm spring rain.

It shouldn’t have—her windows were closed.

With shaking hands, she opened the paper. In Stiles’ distinctive scrawl, rusty-brown, it read-- 

_You don’t have to like the truth to know it will feed your heart better than blood._

There were runes underneath, ones even she knew—ones that meant truth and safe passage. She didn’t know what the rest meant—there was no way she’d get downstairs to get to the book without waking her dad, either. She stared at the paper—at the way that rusty brown ink on the paper could only be human blood, how much of it Stiles had to have drawn to have written the note.

Her open bags stared back at her as she dragged her eyes up, her crossbow case the one thing locked and ready to go. Well, that and the knife still clenched in her hand—ready to do battle. 

Draw blood.

\--

It felt like pulling and being shoved into a ball, like being sliced, like—she had no idea, but then she was standing in front of a tiny cabin, an oil lantern lit on the porch and Stiles bending over at the knees, puking into the grass before he fell forward and kept puking, retching hard like he could cough up a lung if he just pushed hard enough. 

He’d just … what… Apparated her? Maybe he was hacking up a lung. After all, werewolves. 

“What. What do you need?”

She ran to Stiles before she could think too much about it because—Stiles/witch/gun, yes, but he’d pulled her here with her things when she’d bled and burnt the paper. He was still heaving and ugh—eew, that was blood—into the grass—when she put a hand on his back, and oh, god, she had no idea where they were except some part of the woods and shit, how was she going to help him?

He stopped puking, groaned, and kind of flopped onto his side, grabbing her hand and just kind of holding it, his hands cold and shaking and slimy with puke as he bit his lips shut, his eyes screwed shut like he had a horrific headache—he looked really bad, pale and that shiner and split lip looking all fresh, like someone had just done it all over again, not half-healed like it had been an hour ago.

“Do you have something… how do I call Deaton?” Deaton was the pack advisor, he had to know something about magic, at least have some kind of book, maybe he’d know a witch, a witch doctor? She wasn’t supposed to know about Deaton but Scott couldn’t keep secrets for shit, and right now, Stiles looking transparent and a gallon of puke on the ground wasn’t. That wasn’t good.

Stiles shook his head—after a second, he mumbled—“Nnngh, no—just—just. Ever watch Peter Pan? Think. Um. Tinkerbell.”

It was some kind of measure of how much time she’d spent around Stiles that that kind of made sense—so she grabbed both his hands and tried to think. Well. True things. Really? Like Tinkerbell? 

Allison did not want to die. Didn’t want Stiles to. Scott or her dad, either. Or Sheriff Stilinski. She wanted Lydia to drag her to too many stores in the mall until her feet hurt in shoes that were not practical for training in the woods. She wanted Lydia to talk to her again. She … were… oh God, were Erica and Boyd even alive? She never wanted to shoot an arrow again, but she never wanted to be weak, either, and, and she wanted Stiles to stop shaking so hard, to stop looking so much like he was going to die in the middle of the goddamned woods after insulting her in her room and basically daring her to get over her crazy. 

“If you die on me before I spit in your face for calling me a coward, I will figure out how to turn into a Harpy and I’ll follow you into whatever afterlife there is, Stiles Stilinski, so don’t you fucking dare.” If her voice shook, well, only the things that went bump in the night around them would know, and if there were any around, at least they were shy and not overtly hostile, if they weren’t attacking or trying to help.

“Kinky,” Stiles slurred. His mouth twitched in what might be the start of a smile, and she didn’t know how or why, but his lip wasn’t bleeding as much and his bruise was getting lighter, his color a little better, so—she gripped his hands even harder and sat, waited. “Not gonna argue, though.”

She held his hands while a lantern flickered on the porch of someone’s cabin, the tiniest light in the dark while even the birds and insects kept wide of whatever was happening in—the flattened circle of earth where they were sitting in front of the porch, surrounded by a rowan windbreak. They extended past the line of her sight, curving around the sides of the cabin—and there were other trees in and around that line, white oak, birch, pine, aspen, all too purposely set to be anything but some kind of magical screen.

“Where are we?” She didn’t really expect Stiles to answer her now, but she figured since he wasn’t talking, someone had to. “Is this Deaton’s? Did you join a coven? I didn’t think there was one, not that I’d know, but…”

Stiles blinked, his eyes that same glowing gold as he swallowed, turned a little onto his back and blinked up, away, up at whatever he saw in the trees. It was awkward, but without letting go of her hands, he pulled his arms up and wiped his mouth off on his sleeve, then looked back at her even as she shifted to sit, Indian-style. “It’s, um. Mine. I built it. But I didn’t build it. Not yet.”

She didn’t know what that meant.

“Yet?”

Stiles’ eyes fluttered shut, and Allison herself was feeling increasingly cold, even though it was late spring and the weather wasn’t really that bad. “Mmm. Yet. Gotta close th’ loop, gotta build it,” he said, licking his lips in that same old habit that had boys and girls saying—well—things she wondered if Stiles knew they said about him. 

Probably not.

“Are we in the future?”

That made Stiles blink his eyes open, shove himself up on his elbows, groan. “Ugh. No.” He shook his head like he was still woozy, then said—“Look—haul me up, okay—we should go in. It’ll be better if we get inside.”

Since she could still kind of see all of his veins, he was so pale, Allison wasn’t so sure, Stiles rolled his eyes. “Check your cellphone.”

She let go with one hand to pull her phone out of her pocket—it was still today. Whatever that meant. She slipped it back in the jacket, then crouched, pulled Stiles up with her. He bit his lip, then flopped a bit until she pulled his arm over his shoulder—he wasn’t as heavy as she thought he would be, for how tall he was, and it wasn’t that hard to go up to the cabin, up the two steps, push open the door. 

It was straight out of Harry Potter, or maybe Dr. Who, because it was way bigger on the inside.

“Dude, don’t even ask, I haven’t figured it out yet either. But it’s…”

“It smells like your house,” she said, because Allison wasn’t a werewolf, but she did try to be aware of her surroundings. It smelt like burnt sugar, sweet hay, Stiles’ cooking, some other boy smell she couldn’t name, and much more of that fresh rain smell from before, though that wasn’t much of a smell at Stiles’ house. Just here, and in Allison’s room when he’d done his disappearing act. 

She made it as far as the couch, and as soon as they sat down, she looked toward the door. She didn’t want to leave Stiles here, but her stuff was still outside, the lantern too, and she needed to lock the door so they could—she could—secure the house. Stiles might not be puking up blood, but he clearly was done doing magic tonight, she’d have to pick up the slack and figure out how to protect them both until he could explain what was happening and they could figure out what was happening.

The floor under them shuddered—and her go-bag, the two carry-cases she’d packed, the lantern all popped inside onto the floor on the rug in front of them both. The whole—house—cabin—thing—shuddered, and the door visibly and slowly closed and locked. 

Oh. 

Shit.

“It kind of does that,” Stiles said, and there was a bit of a smile at the edge of his mouth. “You. Uh, can let go know. I’ll. The house. Now that I’m inside? It’s already mine, so I. I don’t know, I don’t have any idea, but. I’ll be fine in a jif.”

She let go, skeptical, because Stiles was the kind of person who’d say he was fine no matter what, but—he did look better. 

There was a kitchen through the doorway—she washed her hands in the inset stone sink and dried them on the perfectly serviceable, plain white linen towels out on the counter. Everything was cast iron or silver, ceramic—old fashioned materials, and the stove looked wood-fired. Oh. Yes—there was tinder and matches and logs along the wall, there. She wondered if the sink was fed by a cistern. 

When she went back into the living room, Stiles had his hand on the mantel over the fireplace, his face screwed up—and the rest of her bags from her room popped into the room. He hissed, but before she could even get to his side to see if he was going to die puking again, he pushed off the mantel and gave her a shaky smile. 

“Magical house that future me built, meet Allison Argent. Allison Argent, meet my magical house that is a cryptic sonofabitch and is hiding all the grammyres from me, even though there’s no way I don’t have books here. You need to feed the hearthstone for the house to fully protect you.”

A silver dagger dropped from—nowhere? Out of his sleeve, and he held it, hilt out, towards her.

“How do you know?” She wasn’t sure what she was asking. How did he know the house would protect her? How did he know that some future him built this house, somehow? How did he know they were going to be okay, somehow?

“I left me a note that I found when I … first found this place.” Stiles snorted, though the expression was painful, like maybe he’d had to do that puking thing here once before, all alone. She didn’t like that thought, much. “It was long and full of bullshit deflection and too much harsh truth. No way I didn’t write it.” He swallowed, then looked at the floor. "And. Um. Dreams."

Dreams. Right. And a note from his future self. And a silver knife and a hungry house. “Blood magic…”

Stiles nodded, face flat. Serious. Sure, like he had no doubt. “It’s dangerous. Powerful, too. It’s all about intention. So. Do you intend to keep this place secret, so you can help figure out how we’re going to stop these fucking alphas? Do you intend to do no harm to anyone while they’re involved in helping with that task as well? Then spill.”

He tossed the knife at her the two feet between them, an easy underhand toss—she could shift, catch it by the hilt, or let it spin—and the way he’d phrased, tailored the words.

She caught it, blade first, clenched her fingers around the blade, walked over to face him. Set the blooded blade down on the empty fireplace stones. Watched as the blood on the blade—disappeared, the few drops on her hand disappearing too, the cuts sealing like she was a wolf as she watched.

Stiles snorted, like he was amused at—the house?

“This is crazy,” she said. 

He looked her right in the eye, that weird gold again like he was looking right through her. “What’s a little sociopathy between friends?”

Was that what he thought of her?

“Are we? Friends?” She’d thought they were, he’d always been sympathetic about being the new kid, and he’d tried, after her Mom, even if she hadn’t been… well, still, sometimes she’d wondered—Stiles had such a tongue on him, was so protective of Scott, and as much as he’d never been mean to her before tonight, she sometimes didn’t have much of an idea what he was thinking. She’d certainly never thought he was a witch.

Stiles tipped his head, a werewolfish thing, like he was listening to something she couldn’t hear.

He frowned. “I don’t know. I don’t have any friends right now. We could try, if you want. We don’t have to, though. It was just a figure of speech. I’ll settle for allies.”

She was about to ask what he meant when she thought back to the way that he’d laughed—hard-- when she’d brought up Scott, that and—why was he all beaten up in the first place?

“We could try.” She didn’t know any more if she’d succeed. She didn’t know anymore what she could do. Kate would have known. Her mother, maybe, at least she’d sat Allison down with the books once it was all out and started to tell her the stories… 

Something in the air of the house settled, like it had been waiting for her to say that, make up her mind. “Hunh,” Stiles blinked, looked around at the huge, rustic house, all its handmade objects—then smiled at her, that same doofy smile he and Scott sometime smiled at each other. 

That weight that had been sitting inside her somehow released—she wondered if inside this crazy house, she could float. Maybe she could. 

Either way, though, Stiles was blinking like he was going to fall asleep where he stood. “C’mon, Tink,” she said, grabbing his hand and heading toward the doorway at the other end of the room. “You can tell me everything in the morning, I live to skip Chem.”

Stiles didn’t even protest the nickname—just mumbled goodnight when it turned out the first bedroom was his, a huge four-poster bed already turned down. He stumbled toward it, kicking his shoes off and groaning as he faceplanted onto the bed.

The next room was smaller, but big enough for her and her things—and the house seemed to agree, because her bags poofed onto the floor. At least they didn’t unpack themselves, and there didn’t seem to be any singing candelabra. Magic was one thing—but Allison was no Disney princess, even if her Dad might want that back. She’d unpack her stuff and figure out if Stiles wanted to learn how to shoot a rifle tomorrow. Maybe he already knew. For tonight, the bed and its rust and green quilt looked soothing, like the woods brought inside, gentled. Maybe the magical handmade house had a gravity-filled bathtub. Maybe wood-fired, so the water stayed hot? And maybe birds would come braid her hair and sing while she washed. She snorted at her brain's wandering bullshit.

She kicked off her shoes, undid her belt and her her bra, slipped her knife under the pillow, and left the rest for the morning. The lantern stifled itself, but for the first time in—since her mother, before—she didn’t feel like the darkness was out to get her, like she’d explode from all the things she felt and still didn’t know. Tonight, at least, all the different voices telling her what she should do were quiet.

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Marina & the Diamonds’ “Fear and Loathing,” for Allison-centered reasons.
> 
> Sooooo... not that anyone cares WHY it took so long after getting a new computer but, I kind of switched jobs and opened a new store and all kinds of crazy life stuff and then it was Allison week and my brain said-- put off writing about Stiles & the faeries and Stilinski family feels some more & write a little something about-- how in the hell did Allison and Stiles start to be friends before they A-teamed the alphas?
> 
> This would be that story. I don't know if I did Allison justice, but I did try. And I hope that in the context of the story (this takes place within a few days of the warehouse, Gerard, and Scott & Stiles at the lacrosse field, not to mention Scott & Allison's breakup) Stiles' harshness makes sense. He's not all that far from the zone he was in when Lydia and he "talked" in his room, except between the warehouse and now, well-- he's gotten hit in the head with the fact that being a spark means something. And he at least understands-- when you've lost something, you have to do something else to counter that lack.


End file.
